HIGH SCHOOL GOLF: Middletown's Gilman no longer under the radar

Sunday

Mason Gilman, who will attend Assumption College and play for the golf team, was the runner-up at the state tournament last year. He's looking to finish the job in his final season.

MIDDLETOWN — The seventh hole tee box at Wanumetonomy Golf & Country Club — the lowest point on the course — sits adjacent to Burma Road, with just a chain link fence separating the two.

Middletown High School senior Mason Gilman, playing a match against Rogers recently, teed up his ball next to the blue markers and ripped his uphill drive out of sight. He strode up the hill and found his ball in the right green-side bunker, about 290 yards from the tee.

Gilman deftly wedged the ball out of the sand and onto the green, only to three-putt and earn a bogey. Annoyed but not showing it outwardly, he bogeyed the next hole. Then he closed the nine-hole match with a birdie to finish with a 2-over-par 37 on his home course.

“At least I got one back,” Gilman said. “When you have a bad hole, you have to let it go before it snowballs and turns into something worse. It’s very, very frustrating but you really have to let it go as fast as you can and just move on.

“I’d like to think I have that down. It’s been a part of what I’m trying to learn.”

Gilman, a two-way starter on the Middletown football team as a running back and defensive back, feels just as comfortable at Wanumetonomy as he does on the gridiron. But his football days are over. Gilman will be attending Assumption College in Worcester, Massachusetts, and will play golf for the Greyhounds.

His reputation was built on his football prowess, but that changed last year, when he finished runner-up at the state golf tournament.

Gilman participated in a two-day combine in Syracuse, N.Y., and said about 25 golf coaches from Division II and Division III colleges attended. The combine participants played 18 holes at The Pompey Club one day and another 18 at the Lake Shore Country Club to close the event.

“It was a good experience,” Gilman said. “I ended up winning it. I think I was 1-over the first day and 3-over the next. I really started to get my name out there.”

Assumption coach John O’Hara did not attend the combine, but learned what Gilman had done through an acquaintance.

“I try to find kids just through tournaments. It’s the best way to find them,” O’Hara said. “I think Mason flew under the radar of a lot of people. The Le Moyne [College] coach told me he was impressed with his ball speed and launch angle. I did my research and made some phone calls.”

Gilman visited Franklin Pierce University in New Hampshire and Le Moyne, which is in Syracuse. He talked to the Bentley College coach and was thinking of visiting Southern New Hampshire University. But he made a stop in Worcester, Massachusetts, first and visited Assumption, a Division II program.

“I stepped on the Assumption campus and I felt it was exactly where I wanted to go,” Gilman said. “John O’Hara is a great guy, a good coach. I’m looking forward to learning a lot from him and realizing my potential over the next four years.”

O’Hara said Gilman and three other freshmen are entering the college in the fall and will be rooming together and playing together.

“At the end of last year, I met with him and talked to him and his parents,” O’Hara said. “He talked with the kids on the golf team and he seemed to like them and the school. He seemed really excited about that.

“I can’t wait to help him improve more. I don’t think he’s ever really had much teaching. He’s pretty much self-taught. I want to help him grow his game and push him to the next level. I feel lucky I got him.”

Gilman will begin his college career in the fall, but he still has some lofty high school goals. Gilman earned medalist honors in his first four matches and has the month of May to prepare for the state tournament.

“The major goal — obviously everyone wants to win the state,” Gilman said. “I feel like if I keep playing the way I am, I’ve got a good shot at it. But it’s not going to be easy. Nick Petracca at North Providence and Ricky Angeli at [Bishop] Hendricken are two very good players, and I’ll be looking forward to going against them at the states.”

Gilman can draw from past experiences at the season-ending event. Last year, Gilman made the opening-day cut by shooting a 4-over-par 75, leaving him tied for seventh place and six strokes behind Hendricken senior Colin Sutyla. At the end of the second and final day, Gilman was alone in second place.

“Not many people expected me to be up that high. I really hadn’t done that much,” Gilman said. “I went into it with the mental aspect that I really had nothing to lose. I didn’t hold anything back. The first five holes I was 4-over. The next 13 holes I was 2-under. I ended up with the lowest round of the day (73). It’s something to be proud of.

“It was almost inspiring to me to keep working and to push to get even better. Doing well but coming up short is kind of a motivation factor.

“Now I feel like I am more relaxed. I’m very competitive, so you just go out there and do the best you can. But now that I am committed to college it does take a little bit of the pressure off knowing I have somewhere to go. I still want to do the best I can and be competitive.”

srogers@newportri.com

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